


Another Cog in the Machine

by Sturzkampf



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Gen, Inspired by Music, Originally Posted Elsewhere, The Cog is Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 12:44:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5744305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sturzkampf/pseuds/Sturzkampf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>And now, here is an inspiring message from Agatha Heterodyne</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Cog in the Machine

**Author's Note:**

> _Originally posted on the Jägerkin Forum._

The new machine in Mechanicsburg’s Great Hospital was working perfectly, its gears humming in flawless alignment as it span up to full speed. Soon the centre of healing originally created by the Heterodyne boys would once again be fully operational, thanks to the tireless efforts of Agatha Heterodyne (and of course her loyal and hard-working minions). Yet when Agatha came in to see how the work was going she found Fraulein Snaug sitting dejected on the floor with her favourite spanner in her hand, staring at it as though she had never seen it before.

“Hey, well done!” Agatha began, “You’ve got it all running already.” She always found it best to start off with a compliment when one of her minions had an emotional problem, especially those like Fraulein Snaug who, as Carsten von Mekkhan would say, were easily caught up in the Master’s enthusiasm. “So, er, is everything OK?” she asked. Everything was clearly not OK, but it was the approach that was most likely to get a response.

“No, no, I’m fine,” said Snaug, dispiritedly, not looking up at her, a worrying sign in itself. She was usually so full of energy and enthusiasm, (although this was not always A Good Thing). Agatha wondered if she’d been overdoing her medication. She sat down beside her minion.

“So, want to tell me about it?” she asked.

Snaug gave a long, sad sigh. “It’s nothing really, only…” Agatha gave her an encouraging look. “It’s just that looking at all those gears got me thinking. I’m just like one of those little cogwheels in that machine aren’t I? Every day it’s the same old thing, wielding this same spanner amid all this whirring clockwork and it’s doing my head in. All my life I slave away, spinning round and round like the cogs, but never achieving anything, never getting anywhere. I doubt I’ll ever get out of this place, no matter how much I dream of being free. You keep telling us to carry on, but I can’t help wondering what the point is. All in all I’m just another cog in the machine.”

 “And why is this bad?” asked Agatha. She reached down into the mechanism. There was a click and the spinning clockwork stopped. The room suddenly became very silent and very still.

 “You’re a cog like this you mean?” she asked, holding up the small gear wheel she had removed so Snaug could see it. “You’re right, it’s actually pretty insignificant isn’t it? All it does is spin and spin in place. It never goes anywhere. As far as it can see, it isn’t achieving anything. There’s nothing special about it. You wouldn’t say that it was doing anything important would you? But it’s a fine piece of work nonetheless, and the machine stops if you take it away. All this wonderful and complicated mechanism is only a useless lump of metal without this one cog. And it’s the same for all the other cogs. Each one is just sitting in its place, day after day, spinning around, never getting anywhere. But take any of them out and all the mechanism stops working. Only when all of us cogs work together will this wonderful engine of civilisation move forward.”

Agatha indicated the new great hospital around them and then gazed through the window out across the city of Mechanicsburg to the Castle on its pinnacle that under her guidance was becoming the great beacon of hope and freedom across Europa and beyond (even if it was on occasion necessary to drag it into the new era kicking and screaming).

She looked back at the cog wheel in her hand. “And now this little wheel is free. Free of work and duty and responsibility. It isn’t tied to the machine any more. It can go where it will and do as it pleases? And what does it amount to? Merely some useless piece of metal, not performing any useful function. Only fit to be thrown in the scrap or to be discarded in a corner to rust.”

Agatha reached down into the machine. “You are right. At the end of the day we are all just another cog in the machine of civilisation...” She carefully put the cogwheel back in its place and with a whir of perfectly aligned gears the mechanism came back to life.

“…but what a machine!”

**Author's Note:**

> _Inspired by the song[Another Cog in the Machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2Aco73B4L0) from [The Cog is Dead's](http://www.johnmondelliproductions.com/thecogisdead/home.html) latest album, 'Carnival of Clockwork'._
> 
>  
> 
> _Agatha Heterodyne, Fraulein Snaug, Carsten von Mekkhan, Castle Heterodyne and Mechanicsburg are the copyright of Studio Foglio._


End file.
